Attraction - 11. Chapter 11 – Preparing for winter

The afterglow of great love-making can last days. You catch yourself daydreaming about the moments when lust combined with ether, leaving imprint of images that you couldn’t possibly have captured with your own eyes while experiencing them.

The squirms of your lover as you lavished him with tenderness; Myriad emotions that flashed across his eyes to betray - immense desire, fear and unshakeable trust; Sensuous writhing of bodies interspersed by acts of animalistic fervor; The magnificent sensations of a slow union whose each pause was electric, each movement triumphant - made you soar.

It had become physically painful to be apart from Kent now. Our conversations began to get interrupted by long silences, each knowingly refraining from asking things of the other, demands that could not be met. When we finally were together next weekend (my life was coming to be defined by them) we did not leave my apartment at all. What accentuated things was Ken’s agitation. He had been the cool one so far and when I would see him struggle, it would catapult my anxiety off the charts. We shared a lingering kiss by his car as he was leaving again. He then held me close to whisper in my ears.

“Smile. We’ll have the whole of next week together. This one would just fly. Give me a smile before I go. That’s the picture I want to take with me.”

“I will if you do”, I mumbled into his shirt.

He pushed me to an arm’s length and attempted one of his blinding ones. I gave just as much effort. Off he went with that.

The week went quickly indeed. Kent was busy wrapping up the project he had worked on. I was taking leave next week too so that left too many things to take care of for me as well. On Thursday Trevor and I went out for drinks. He basically put his foot down and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I realized there was something important he wanted to discuss. Besides, Kent had gone out with his colleagues.

“So,” Trevor started, “you and Kent ‘ve got pretty thick yea?”

I just smiled, there wasn’t much to say.

“You guys planned what you’ll do when he is California?”

It was an obvious question; unfortunately I did not have an answer for it.

“We haven’t discussed anything per se, I guess we’ll just have to try the long distance thing. I was thinking I’d make a few trips may be. If he wants me to that is. B’ school is not going to leave him much time anyway.”

I avoided looking into Trevor’s eyes and kept mine on the glass of beer in my. I was realizing that this was his gesture of ‘I’m here for you’. Much as I appreciated it, I was feeling more hopeless now.

“I don’t know, Trev” I continued, “I don’t know what will happen after he goes to California. Where will things go? He says he loves me but will it work from that far? After all, he could have anyone he wants.”

“Would you stop that?” Trevor raised his voice. His anger surprised me. “Fuck dude! You need to drop this whole loser talk man! That guy loves you and you totally deserve it. Hell! Cara thinks she has never seen her brother this happy. All this negativity isn’t right. You should concentrate on how you guys can make this work. Every relationship takes effort. So will yours.”

“Says you? You and Cara are perfect together.” They were!

“So are you and Kent.” He was almost pleading me to understand.

I sighed.

“Fine! I’ll tell you as soon as we decide what our arrangement is going to be. Ok? Happy now? I want to make sure he does not compromise on grad school.”

Trevor relaxed after that and we diverted to office gossip and boss bitching. As a parting shot Trevor asked me not to go into the hole me and Kent went to generally when he would be here the coming week. “Be nice and share”, were his exact words. I understood that to be a plea on his girlfriend’s behalf.

It so happened we were abnormally relaxed during the week Kent spent in Portland. We got the future planning out of the way quickly; I was going to visit at least once a month. Fall was coming soon and with it would come Thanksgiving and New Year and study breaks, we would spend them together one way or the other. In the last months of his course he might have time to travel here as well so we would probably spend two weekends of a month together. For a change I trumped Kent with advance planning and was rewarded for my efforts through terrific sex.

We went out with Cara, and Trevor. We also hung out with Jenny and her boy toy. Kent found him mature for his age, I begged to differ. Two days went on a trip to Crater Lake, we drove over to the beach another day. All in all, it was a truly relaxing vacation.

On the eve of Kent’s departure, Cara threw a party in her brother’s honor. I was glad, because if left to our devices we would have moped around and wasted the day away. Many of the people who had come to the game Kent and I had met at oh so long ago, also showed up here. My boyfriend and I stuck to each other’s side the entire time and withstood a lot of good natured ribbing over it.

That night, our lovemaking was un-hurried. We savored each other completely, knowing that the coming months would be tough on us, that the memories of each moment together would fuel our relationship through the spells of separation.

One thing surprised me though; I was expecting Kent would ask me to move to California to be near him. After all, in my field I could easily find a job there. Not that I wanted to leave Portland or anything. Just that it was an option to consider. Oh and another thing, he did not ask to fuck me either. I knew he was interested in my rear by the amount of attention it received in our lovemaking sessions. He simply shied away from pressing the agenda. Weird! They did not play on my mind much, but I did tuck the thoughts away for scrutiny once he was gone, may be rope Jenny in to help decipher the whys.

At the airport I saw him off with a genuine smile. I was waving as he left. Entering the TSA line, he turned and shouted ‘I love you, Jon’. Everyone turned to stare at me. Of course I blushed crimson and scooted out of there.

Walking back I realized there was another thing he had not asked me; did I love him?

To all my readers I wanted to say a 'huge' thank you. I crossed the 50 mark in reputation and am out of the mod control. Really thankful for all the great review and of course the likes. Keep them coming .